dwelt a people happy and virtuous as the Hyperboreans. They were
named the Aethiopians. The gods favored them so highly that they
were wont to leave at times their Olympian abodes and go to share
their sacrifices and banquets.

On the western margin of the earth, by the stream of Ocean, lay a
happy place named the Elysian Plain, whither mortals favored by
the gods were transported without tasting of death, to enjoy an
immortality of bliss. This happy region was also called the
"Fortunate Fields," and the "Isles of the Blessed."

We thus see that the Greeks of the early ages knew little of any
real people except those to the east and south of their own
country, or near the coast of the Mediterranean. Their imagination
meantime peopled the western portion of this sea with giants,
monsters, and enchantresses; while they placed around the disk of
the earth, which they probably regarded as of no great width,
nations enjoying the peculiar favor of the gods, and blessed with
happiness and longevity.

The Dawn, the Sun, and the Moon were supposed to rise out of the
Ocean, on the eastern side, and to drive through the air, giving
light to gods and men. The stars, also, except those forming the
Wain or Bear, and others near them, rose out of and sank into the
stream of Ocean. There the sun-god embarked in a winged boat,
which conveyed him round by the northern part of the earth, back
to his place of rising in the east. Milton alludes to this in his
"Comus":

"Now the gilded car of day